–YOU KNOW YOU KNEAD IT–

Category: Boat Building (Page 2 of 7)

Today was the most divine sunny day that I’ve had since living in the trailer. Sublime. I worked the second time this week on the caravan – I’ve scraped back all of one side and removed most of the cupboard doors. More scraping, sanding and painting looms.

M was busy, taking excess tin to the tip. I helped take tools and boat building ingredients to the shed (which will be finished when we get six extra bits of tin on Thursday). Our last trip was taking Oomoo to the shed, where we are going to rehabilitate him from his trip up and down the coast. There needs to be some grinding, bogging, sanding and repainting (*groan* – it sounds just like the caravan, but it must be done). I notice, from the sidebar, that it’s a two years to the day that we bought my boat from the tip! This is what it used to look like – frightening, I know. Here’s an ‘after’ shot.

So we were hanging around the boatyard just on dusk and the light was fabulous. The tide was high and the creek was a mirror.

And if you’ve been wondering what’s become of the trimaran? It’s here!

After joining me for trailer lunch today (I am working at home this week), M took me over to the boatyard to tour a catamaran that’s just two metres bigger than ours is going to be. I am hoping those two metres will be eye snappingly obvious, as this boat today was almost too big for me to take in. God knows how M can even bear to look at it, because it must make his job seem almost insurmountable. It was a hulking 13.2 metres long – ours, obviously, is a marginally more manageable 11 metres. Inside there are three double beds, two bathrooms, lounge/dining area, kitchen (galley) and chart table.

The kitchen and the lounge were uber-sexy. The whole thing was just a headf!@k. M kept looking at me expectantly and saying, “do you think you could live in one of these? Ours is a little bit smaller you know.” And I kept looking back at him with a look that said “Move from trailer in the middle of horse property into a luxury wind powered float-o-matic with my very own bedroom? Do I have to even think about it?”

I will train the cats to liveaboard and like it. I will find somewhere cosy for the Humber and the Caravan. And I will ESPECIALLY try to come up with a wily crafty ways to help us own it outright – ’cause you can’t cruise and make loan repayments at the same time. Unless you are wily and crafty and clever.

We brandished the camera and took photographs of cool design ideas that we can shamelessly steal for ourselves. It was like having a half glimpse at the future.

For the past fortnight, M has been on fire for the lord of catamaran. (How does this relate to the title of this post? Um. It was the only musical reference I could thing of that contained the word ‘hull’. I desperately wanted a wordplay on Mull of Kintyre but just couldn’t wrap my head around one.) He finished off the roof in less than two weeks, beginning with this (which took a few days in itself):

…and finishing with a roof that resembled a large slater bug (this pic taken from the opposite direction):

…and then a week ago, took apart the base that he’d used to build the roof (thus providing fuel for our wood fire) and began work on Hull Number 2. This is what he’s done in about seven days. The hull on the left is the first one that we flipped and moved over a few weeks back. The beginnings of Hull No.2 are in the foreground – being constructed upside down.

In the next pic the completed first hull is in the foreground, while Hull No.2 is at the back.

So that’s where it’s at. Of course, it’s much easier building something for the second time when everything is in place, but still. He is a shed demon!

I was looking at where we were at this time last year. It was this week that we had finished the shed in which M was going to compose our 35-foot Very Large Catamaran. Well. Three hundred and sixty five days later we have two hulls flipped and waiting to be joined. It happened today!! M is a SUPERSTAR!! It has been a ENORMO job – and I know the second hull was a real slog for M. He literally had to do the same job he’d just finished All. Over. Again. Of course he was able to implement some things he’d learnt on the first one, which was a bit of a help, but the slog was almost more mental than physical.

The bits of wood that were perfectly level (called the strongback) was pulled out by M yesterday, and the hull looked strangely naked…

This picture is from the back of the shed, with the first hull ready and waiting for its friend.

The turning of the hull. I’m not sure how they managed it, but it was M and two guys from the boatyard, a few mattresses, winches, ropes and grunt!

Of course my role is to swan in holding cake after it’s all over, and grab a photo opportunity 😉 The hulls are spaced as they will be once they are joined up. This thing is unexpectedly BIG!

I have bought M a few bottles of Guinness and baked a chocolate cake. It feels like we’ve crossed a large hurdle.